Boston University Trustee Rajen Kilachand announced Friday night he will make a further $10 million donation to BU, on top of his previous $25 million, officials said.
Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations Scott Nichols said the donation is an increase of Kilachand’s previous donation to the Arvin and Chandan Nandlal Kilachand Honors College.
“We announced Friday night that Mr. Kilachand has decided to increase his commitment from $25 million to $35 million to support Kilachand Honors College,” he said.
In September 2011, Kilachand endowed the University Honors College with $25 million, the largest donation in BU’s history, according to a previous Daily Free Press article. As a part of his donation, Kilachand requested that the school be named for his parents, Arvind and Chandan Nandlal Kilachand.
Nichols said the donation comes as part of the weekend’s kickoff of the Campaign for BU, a fundraising program with a $1 billion goal. The campaign’s start centered on this weekend’s Alumni Weekend.
“Friday night, there was a gala dinner for about 250 of the university’s leaders and major contributors,” Nichols said. “Mr. Kilachand, of course, was part of that, and he had been in conversations with the president [of BU] for quite a while, and we used that occasion to announce his decision to increase his commitment to $35 million.”
Kilachand graduated from the School of Management in 1974. He serves as chair and president of the Dodsal Group, a Dubai, United Arab Emirates-based conglomerate that operates in trading, engineering and manufacturing, among other fields.
Nichols said two of Kilachand’s sons also attended BU.
Kilachand is also a member of the board of Pathfinder International, a nonprofit organization focused on promoting family health and HIV/AIDS awareness, according to the Campaign for BU website.
Nichols said specific plans for the use of the donation in KHC are still being discussed.
“[Kilachand is] still discussing with the president exactly which ways this money will support KHC,” he said. “Revamping the honors college was a priority for the institution and Mr. Kilarchand has helped us do that.”
Kilachand said in a statement on the Campaign for BU website that education is incredibly important.
“Young men and women in this country need to go out in the world with open minds and no preconceived notions,” Kilachand said in the statement. “They have to free their minds to do the kinds of things their founding fathers did. They have to go out into the world and build.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
